


above the code

by kittu9



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon Compliant, Community: fma_ladyfest, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-04
Updated: 2011-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-20 03:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/kittu9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the company moves to Central, Riza finally gets a day off, and spends it doing things she’d rather not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	above the code

**Author's Note:**

> Gen. Set immediately prior to the events of Chapter 30 (when she encounters Barry), but references pre-canon events.  
> Inspired by this prompt: “Riza interacts with the other (normal) women at the grocery store.” (unfulfilled prompt from fma_ladyfest 2010)  
> Title from Justin Vernon’s “Above the Code.”

Riza doesn’t usually spring for a day off, even when the Colonel is at his most trying, but the move to Central has altered, if not outright destroyed, some of her routines. Whereas in Eastern she was familiar enough with her apartment and the streets that separated it from headquarters, now she has to pause, her mind addled by paperwork, whenever she approaches a cross street; she trips over the boxes she still hasn’t unpacked; and the first night in her new place, she bruised her hip on the doorway to the bathroom at least twice. When the Colonel remarks, in his off-hand noticing-without-noticing way, that she’s owed the time, Riza doesn’t hesitate to take it.

She doesn’t sleep in—Riza hasn’t slept much past five-thirty since the war, no matter how late she falls into bed—but the thought of unpacking exhausts her enough that she takes Hayate for a longer-than-usual run instead. It’s nearly nine by the time she returns.

***  
Because she moved in on such short notice, and because the previous tenant was probably male and definitely unmarried, Riza spends far longer than she’d like just cleaning up the damn apartment. The kitchen counters are sticky and sour with milky coffee stains, the shower is caked with soap scum (and an unsettling amount of pubic hair; she’s going to ask for her deposit back), her bedroom blinds are so coated with cobwebs she initially mistook them for curtains, and three out of five light fixtures need some kind of work done. She’s also pretty sure the pilot light is out on the stove; she takes care of that first.

Before it became clear that Riza had no talent for alchemy, her father used to teach her how to fix things. When she was eight, he had been particularly keen on home repair, and had spent the summer showing her how to take things apart and put them back together. The knowledge still comes in handy, but it’s been almost twenty years since his lessons, so it takes a few minutes to remember what and figure out where the thermocouple is, and a few minutes longer to fumble the gas cock off; for a brief, utterly bizarre moment, Riza wishes she had someone to light the match and pass it to her. She toggles the knob again and manages to hold, not drop, the match; it lights. She waits until the flame burns steadily before clicking the knob from ‘pilot’ to ‘on.’ The lonely feeling vanishes as Riza settles back onto her heels, and it is replaced with satisfaction. She’s never relit a pilot light on her own before.

Cleaning takes much longer than relighting the stove. By the time she finishes scrubbing down the kitchen and the bathroom, she needs a shower of her own, and by the time she finishes combing cobwebs out of her hair, Riza is stomach-churningly hungry. Despite having spent most of the day inside her new apartment, it still comes as a shock when she realizes that her cupboards are mostly bare. It shouldn’t be a surprise; Riza knows there’s no one here but herself and the dog. There’s depressingly little left in last night’s takeout containers, but it fills her up enough that she can make a realistic grocery list. She has another one of her crazy thoughts, this time wondering if she could call headquarters and ask Breda if he knows of a good butcher shop in her neighborhood, but self-sufficiency wins out without any real effort.

***

Before she goes out, she gets dressed. The civilian clothes feel odd against her skin, after so much time spent in uniform. The long dress pulls a little across her hips and Riza stops fastening it for a moment and looks at the smooth slide of fabric, the line of her leg showing through the deep side slit; she hasn’t felt this much like a woman in a long time. It’s a good feeling, she decides. It compels her to dig through her bag of toiletries until she finds an old lipstick that might belong to one of her girlfriends back East, and she stands in front of her bathroom mirror with an open mouth, applying the color carefully to her bottom lip and pressing the color against her upper lip.

 The color smoothes on easily, prettily and Riza smiles a little at her reflection. Her mother fell ill when Riza was still too young to wear makeup, though old enough to want to; before she died, her mother had sat Riza beside her on the bed and pulled cosmetics from the bedside drawer, and had taught her how to apply them, one by one.

 Despite its bitterness, this is Riza’s fondest childhood memory; her mother had always been immaculately made up, and the lipstick had made Riza feel grown-up and in on a secret. Now it serves as a reminder of the body beneath her clothes, and of remarkable civility; excellent appearances.

 Her hair is still damp, and she lets it hang loose around her shoulders. Riza puts on her coat—it’s not cold out, but the back of her dress is low enough to show a glimpse of her scars—and leaves the apartment, reviewing her grocery list as she goes.

***

At the store she struggles to remember how women talk to each other. The dress and her heels remind her how to walk like a civilian and not a soldier, which helps, except for the gun fastened high on her thigh. She holds her shoulders taut and even, missing the leather holster that she usually fastens beneath her uniform jacket; she wonders if her posture suffers without the weight of her pistols against her ribs.

Someone compliments her hair and Riza finds the in she’s been looking for: “I don’t suppose you know of a place where I could get it cut,” she answers wryly. “I’ve just moved here from out East and the office didn’t exactly hand out a city guide.”

 The other woman—Alice—laughs knowingly and pulls a card out of her fathomless purse, the extravagant size of which Riza finds herself envying. “Ask for Emily when you go, but don’t let her do more than a trim. The length’s becoming.”

 Riza wishes she could be friends with Alice, but the other woman has so many tells that Riza feels embarrassed for her. It’s just as well: sooner or later things get in the way of extra-military relationships, and Riza has a lot of skeletons in her closet, even for an Ishbal veteran. She keeps her small talk purposefully dull; the interest in Alice’s eyes wanes, and becomes something polite and superficial.

 Alice turns down one aisle and Riza waves her off before moving to the butcher shop next door.

 There, a woman passive-aggressively cuts her off at the meat counter with a sweet smile and the claim that she only needs a few items; Riza doesn’t say much back, but she thinks, _everyone is here for just a few things_. It won’t do to be catty just now, but the thought gives her an idea and she shrugs into the identity of the Colonel’s Elizabeth, lightening her tone and leaning forward so the shopkeeper can catch a glimpse of her breasts. She’s unsurprised when her flirting gets her a wink, a soup bone and a few extra ounces of beef. The Elizabeth act is enjoyable, even if Riza isn’t used to an audience; Elizabeth is, and she moves throughout the marketplace, her confidence radiating down the curve of her spine.

***

Out of habit, and because Riza feels more like an outsider than usual, she keeps an eye on her fellow shoppers; it’s past five, and the stores are crowded with wives and babies and a few house-husbands, scrambling to purchase last minute groceries for dinner. A lot of the women have a tense, busy look on their faces that’s impossible to read but reminds Riza of living in a war zone. Strangely, that same dangerous memory is a comfort to her: Riza’s been a soldier for a long time, and her profession has necessitated the cultivation of a deep and imperturbable calm. _This_ , Riza thinks to herself, settling into watchful stillness, _this_ is what she is capable of; forget Elizabeth and her sly flirtations.

 Riza fades into her own old shape and buys a pound of tea, bullion, and a bag of apples. What could be more pedestrian than a blonde woman buying food for one? With the marketplace bustling around her and nobody watching, Riza withdraws her spare pistol from her purse and tucks it into her grocery bag, beside Hayate’s dog food and on top of the tea. She buys a paper cup of coffee from a vendor and sips carefully, rubbing her lipstick off along the rim until her mouth shows only a faint stain. The color was a camouflage, but now it’s the end of the day; she wants to find a café where she can eat dinner, and after walk home to savor the last vestiges of her solitude.

***

 It is dark when she finally does begin her walk home; but now her feet remember the number of paces from the market to her apartment door, and her bags aren’t heavy enough to quiet her mind.

 It’s a nice night; even the fainter city lights are bright enough to blacken out the stars.

 


End file.
